


A Selection of Very Gentle Sunday Afternoon Drabble Prompts

by AlbieGeorge



Category: Cricket RPF
Genre: All the soft, And it came out all... soft, Fluff, I tried to write other things, M/M, Sorry for those who like other things, drabble prompts, so soft, very soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 05:52:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15812742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlbieGeorge/pseuds/AlbieGeorge
Summary: I played a Tumblr drabble prompting game.  Cosy things happened.  I'm nothing if not predictable.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celebel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celebel/gifts), [Fruitloopy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fruitloopy/gifts), [Starstarc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starstarc/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 1, from the lovely celebel:
> 
> #20 with Chris Woakes/Jonny Bairstow for the drabbles? :D  
> Prompt #20: “You need to wake up because I can’t do this without you.”

Chris held his phone like it was a ticking time bomb, his thumb hovering over the green call button.  He shifted uncomfortably on the sofa, provoking a half-hearted chunter of disapproval from  somewhere beneath the dense mass of ginger curls that had taken up residence on his right shoulder.

"You have to call them, Chris." Jonny's sleepy voice implored.  Chris frowned.

"I hate this kind of thing, though..." 

Jonny angled his head to look up at Chris, one eyebrow raised in mild disdain.

"I know, love." he said, "But they charged you twice for your car insurance, and then they were rude to you when you phoned them to sort it out, so you have to complain."

"Can't I just... "

"No."  Jonny moved his had to rub Chris's tummy reassuringly.  "You can do this." Jonny turned his head back towards the TV, as the forwards of two rugby teams in mud-stained stripes locked arms for a scrum.  Chris closed his eyes and dialled, pressing the phone to his ear as he was thanked for his call by a recorded message.

"You are number... SIX... in the queue."

Chris rolled his eyes and put his phone on speaker, resting it on the sofa next to him.  He trailed his fingers through Jonny's hair, and was greeted with a soft hum of approval against his chest.

What seemed like months later, Chris had listened to 14 iterations of the on hold music, at least 20 reminders that his call was important, and found himself teetering at number one in the queue.

He nudged Jonny, bringing his right hand to stroke his boyfriend's side.

"Jonny I'm _next_." he whispered, urgently, but was met with only deep, steady breathing, barely audible over the tinny music from his phone.  He jiggled slightly harder at Jonny's ribs.

"Babe.  Wake up..." Chris felt tension rising in his chest.  This was worse death bowling.  He looked around desperately and then spoke quietly, almost timidly. "Jonny.  You need to wake up because I can't do this without you."

"Hello you're through to Insure-A-Car customer services, Margaret speaking."

Five minutes, a heartfelt apology from Margaret - who it turned out lived near his cousin in Solihull - and a refund later, Chris hung up the phone, indulging himself in something close to a triumphant smile.  Jonny still lay curled against his chest, heavy and warm and reassuring.  Chris felt a rush of affection, that telltale warm ache in his chest,  victory erasing the fact that Jonny had slept through his moment of need.

Chris reached for the remote, and surreptitiously flicked the channel over to Gilette Soccer Saturday, hunting out the Aston Villa score on the ticker, as Jeff Stelling tried to get some sense out of Chris Kamara at Portman Road.

"Hey!" came a sleepy, disgruntled voice. "I was watching that!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The prompt, from a wonderful Tumblr user whose A03 name I don't know, and who will remain anonymous in case they wish to keep their accounts separate:
> 
> 17 joe and jos for the drabble thingy thanks  
> Prompt #17: “Looks like we’ll be trapped for a while…”

The lift made what could only be described as a crunching sound then ground to shuddering halt.  The bright artificial lighting flickered once, and then plunged the lift's occupants into complete darkness.

When the gloomy emergency lights flicked on a second later, Joe was already half way to the emergency button, and was soon connected to a crackly but helpful voice at reception, who told him to "hang tight" and that help was on its way.

"Looks like we'll be trapped for a while... " Joe mused to Jos, who'd been remarkably silent during the whole affair.  "Hang tight is an odd turn of phrase, though.  I mean, do I really want to think of what we're hanging by right now, and whether it's tight or not?"

Joe's impish grin dropped instantly from his face as he turned and saw Jos, who was looking at the Joe with empty-eyed terror and was gripping the handrail of the lift so hard that his knuckles were white.

Joe's mind flicked back to Jos revealing that he was claustrophobic when Joe had been gleefully talking about a horror movie where some poor sod had been buried alive.  Jos had put his headphones on after that and proceeded to stare out of the window of the team bus silently for the rest of the journey.

_Shit._

Flooded with shame at his flippant comment, Joe moved quickly, wrapping his arms tightly around Jos, who after a moment of stiff resistance, sagged helplessly against him.  They descended none too gracefully to the floor, where they remained until the lift engineer arrived and freed them, wobbly-kneed and blinking into the bright lights of lobby.

Joe lay on his back on his hotel bed, and cursed his bad luck.  An opportunity for dinner alone with Jos, to start to unpick these slightly unusual feelings he'd been having for his teammate, had slipped away in the blink of an eye.  Before they'd even left the hotel, Jos had gone weak at the knees, and not because of any of the scenarios that had punctuated Joe's daydreams recently.  And he'd found himself in Jos's hotel room, but only to make sure Jos made it safely into bed to sleep off his swimming head.  Joe had thought about lying down with him, just like he'd thought about kissing Jos's hairline in the lift as he lay helpless against his chest, the smell of their aftershaves mingling in an intoxicating way that Joe felt faintly guilty about noticing.  But he'd been a gentleman, and retreated, to try to catch his teammate's eye another day.

Joe's tummy rumbled loudly and pathetically as he heard a knock on his hotel room door.  If this was someone else's room service being delivered to the wrong room, Joe thought, he was eating it and not feeling bad.  Enough of being Good Guy Joe tonight.

He hauled himself to his feet and crossed the room to open the door, hoping for a steak, or pancakes, or even a fish finger sandwich.  The sight of Jos, balancing a couple of pizza boxes and a four pack of beer with a rueful smile on his face, made Joe's heart do an annoying little flip-flop in his chest.  He put it down to being hungry.

"You must think I'm an idiot." Jos said apologetically.  Joe shrugged and made way for Jos to enter the room.

"No.  I think you're claustrophobic."

Jos shrugged.

"I feel like an idiot." he said quietly.

"Pizza cures everything." Joe said simply, opening up one of the boxes and grinning at Jos.  "Even claustrophobics who think they're idiots."  Jos smiled at that, and Joe grinned back as he noticed the colour returning to Jos's cheeks.

When Jos had fallen asleep on his bed, Joe struggled to remind himself that it was probably more through carbohydrates than affection.  He wrestled with his conscience again for a while, and then scooted around awkwardly until he was top to tail with Jos, grabbing a pillow and jamming it unceremoniously under his head, resisting the urge to yell into it with frustration.  _Bloody Good Guy Joe can do one_ , he thought, but maybe not tonight.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 3, from a Swanderson-loving anon:
> 
> 5, swanderson  
> Prompt #5: “Wait a minute. Are you jealous?”
> 
> Set around the time of the 2010/11 Ashes.

There was little to do on a mildly jetlagged Sunday afternoon in an Australian hotel other than nap.  An attack of the sleepies had set in mid-way through a game of _Call Of Duty_ in his room, and Jimmy had handed his controller to Bres with the optimistic instruction of "Don't fuck it up, Bressie lad."  The sound of Stuart howling with glee as he shot Bres's character in the face faded as he wandered down the corridor to Swanny's room.

Letting himself in to find Swanny not there, he stripped off his shirt and settled into Graeme's bed for a snooze, slightly disappointed not to have a wisecracking hot water bottle to warm his air con frozen feet against.  Shivering slightly, he reached up and turned the temperature up to something civilised before dozing off.

He woke to the click of the hotel room door, and the sound of Swanny pottering around his own hotel room.

"Jesus Christ on a bike, it's hot in here." Swanny realised Jimmy's eyes were on him part way through the sentence and clicked into entertainer mode, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively, "And it's about to get hotter."

Jimmy couldn't help but grin as Graeme performed an ungainly but endearing striptease while he hummed the theme tune from _Austin Powers_ , discarding a different item of clothing after each phrase of the tune.  By the time he snuggled in to Jimmy's side, Jimmy was chuckling and Swanny was flushed and out of breath.  They rested there for a few seconds as Graeme's breathing slowed.

"Where've you been, anyway?" Jimmy asked, lazily messing up Swanny's hair with his fingers.

"Hm?" said Graeme, who had been enjoying the sensation far too much to pay full attention.  "Oh, I was getting beaten by Cooky at darts.  Spent most of the time admiring his biceps, to be honest."

Jimmy raised an eyebrow and stopped fiddling with Swanny's hair, leaving him looking somewhere between a 90s pop star and a cockatoo.

Swanny grinned.

"Wait a minute.  Are you _jealous_?"

Jimmy grumbled unintelligibly, and wrapped his arms tighter around Swanny, his own biceps bulging with the effort.  Swanny wriggled and they wrestled momentarily, coming to rest with Jimmy as the big spoon and the covers thrown off.  Swanny reached up and stroked Jimmy's upper arm.

"Though, in restrospect, I don't know what I was thinking.  Why have steak, when you've got a dirty burger at home?"

Jimmy was too sleepy and content to point out that Graeme had the phrase the wrong way round, and somewhere deep down it was probably quite fitting.

"Mmm quite right too." he mumbled as he fell back to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The prompt, from the wonderful human but difficult prompter that is Fruitloopy:
> 
> You probably have loads but just in case...A request prompt, No.17 Chris Woakes and Jimmy Anderson or Chris Woakes/Jimmy Anderson. They’ve been a little murder flirty these past few weeks. Thank you very muchly xx  
> Prompt #17: “Looks like we’ll be trapped for a while…”
> 
> Set around England v India, 2nd test at Lord's, 2018.

It had been an eventful week for Chris Woakes.  Sure, the highs had been high, there was Kohli's wicket and a test century to celebrate, after all.  But the lows, well the lows had been awkward.  And all of them had involved Jimmy Anderson.  Chris had always managed to put his foot in his mouth around Jimmy, but he had really taken the biscuit a few days before Lord's, when he'd walked into the showers to find Jimmy in a very... unplatonic state with Cooky against the back wall.  He could have just backed out slowly, and no-one would have been any the wiser, but instead he'd managed to drop everything he was holding with an almighty clatter, make a noise somewhere between a yelp and a scream, and collide loudly with the door on his way out.

Cooky had avoided eye contact for a while, but at some point the following afternoon, a few quiet pleasantries and a bit of mutual blushing had smoothed things out.  Jimmy, on the other hand, had acted as if nothing had happened.  In fact he'd been faintly flirty, if anything.  And then Chris had gone and done the unthinkable.

One ball left in his over.  Jimmy had nine in the match, and the Indian tail were flapping around like picnicers under siege by a wasp.  He should have just bowled a wide.  Or a full toss.  Or a really boring straight one.  Or really, anything other than the ball he bowled, which was swatted straight down the throat of a fielder.  The match was over.  Jimmy had nine _.  Oh shit oh shit oh shit_.  Apologies were waved off, but Chris was almost relieved when he was handed a stump, if only to mount something of a defence when Jimmy tried to pierce his skull with his own.

A few short hours later, curfew relaxed for the night, Chris's cheeks were aglow with the warmth of victory and alcohol, beer number three having helpfully replaced the glow of embarrassment that its predecessors hadn't defeated.  The pub they'd found themselves in looked like the set of a Sherlock Holmes movie, it was all low beams and dark wood-panelled corners.  Needing to relieve himself of pints one and two, Chris wobbled slightly as he negotiated the narrow set of stone stairs towards the pub's solitary loo.  Deciding the door handle looked iffy, he carefully pulled the door to, and set about the perilous business of peeing into a toilet bowl while drunk.  A few seconds later, he felt the unsettling sensation of the door opening behind him and another person shuffling in.  The door clicked shut and the door handle promptly clanked to the floor.

"Ooops." said Jimmy Anderson, who appeared to be coming late to the realisation he was not alone in the stall.

There was a long moment where the two men just looked at each other, and then looked at the door handle in pieces on the floor.  Jimmy tested the door, which didn't budge.

"Fuck's sake..." he whispered, under his breath.

"Looks like we'll be trapped for a while..." Chris offered.  Jimmy turned to look at him, and Chris braced himself for murder eyes and a snarl, but Jimmy was smiling ruefully.

"My bad.  Well, at least we've evened things up." he said.

"What?" asked Chris, and Jimmy chuckled mischievously.

"Well, now we've both walked in unannounced when the other one's had their cock out."

Chris looked down, and gasped with embarrassment as he hastily put himself away and zipped up.

"Sorry about that." he managed, feeling almost dizzy from awkwardness. "For both of those things."

"Why?" said Jimmy plainly, "Both were my fault.  I should've looked before barging in here, and I definitely should've resisted my libido in the changing room showers."

Chris smiled.

"So you and Cooky are..."

"Complicated." Jimmy interjected seriously.  He fixed Chris with a penetrating stare. "Is that a problem?"

"No." Chris replied plainly, then laughed. "I've been... complicated... myself before."

Jimmy's face softened.

"Titch?" he asked, gently.

Chris looked down and smiled, betrayed by his cheeks once again.  "That obvious?"

He felt the reassuring warmth of Jimmy's hand on his arm.

"You still miss him?"

The beer and the situation conspired to make Chris not trust himself to speak, so he just nodded sadly.

"He's still around, Chris.  I saw him jumping up and down like a kid in McDonald's when you got your hundred."

The thought of his tiny friend bouncing around the stands at Lord's, despite being there on official business, brought a warm smile to Chris's face, and he closed his eyes momentarily to enjoy it.

"Probably best not to sleep with a selector though, right?"

Jimmy shrugged.

"It's one way to stay in the squad, I guess." He grinned. "The other way is taking all my wickets." Jimmy replaced the reassuring hand with a playful punch at Chris's arm..

"Oh God sorry about that." Chris said.

"Not a problem," Jimmy laughed, "There's always next year."

At that moment, the door rattled and burst open, sending Jimmy staggering forward to awkwardly embrace Chris over the toilet bowl.  A mischievous face, all pink cheeks and flame red curls peeped inside.

"Wotcha lads, what's going on in here?" Jonny grinned and winked theatrically. "Or do I not want to know?"


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The prompt, from a wonderful anon who decided to troll me slightly:
> 
> For the fic prompt game, cookerson in 27 please  
> Prompt #27: “I’m pregnant.”
> 
> Set before the 2017/18 Ashes, when the England boys roomed together, and Jimmy Instagrammed a picture of Alastair ignoring him, with the caption, "Not getting much from my roomy".

Jimmy pouted slightly, his brow settling into its familiar frown.  "We'll room together, it'll be fun" Alastair had said, complete with the suggestive wink that implied that rooming together would also relieve them of the need to skulk silently between each others' rooms at God knows what time of the morning.

And now he'd found himself languishing, unloved and undersexed, on the grey sofa of their suite, next to a man watching old episodes of _Countryfile_.  Alastair hadn't even noticed when Jimmy had snapped a picture of them, uploading it to Instagram with a grumpy caption about not getting much from his roommate.  Much was an understatement.  They'd been alone together for over an hour; Jimmy had thoroughly explored the room, twiddled every dial and turned on every tap and organised his kit at least twice, and he still found himself so horny that he was considering going to the nets for a bat to make himself feel unsexy.

"Ali." Jimmy said, trying not to sound like a petulant child, "Can you stop watching -" he craned his neck to see the screen, " - an old man in a tweed cap building a wall, just for a second?"

"Hmm?" said Alastair, not taking his eyes off the screen, where the old man was stoically arranging stones while the presenter cooed over his skill.

"Would it help if I put on a tweed cap?" Jimmy wondered aloud.  "I'm sure Broady or Jonny's got one... I could arrange the little hotel soaps into a wall if that's what gets you going..."

Silence.  Jimmy narrowed his eyes then rolled onto his side and peered at Alastair incredulously.

"Maybe I should set you up a Twitter." Jimmy mused. "And just post loads of pictures of my cock."

"Uh huh, yeah, whatever you want." came the distracted response.

Jimmy had to laugh at that, a little huff of a laugh that bubbled up out of nowhere and popped his sour mood.  If he'd been in a cartoon, horns and a forked tail would have sprouted at this point.

"Ali?" he said. "I need to tell you something."

"Uh huh."

"I'm pregnant."

A pause.

"Mmmhmm." Alastair's eyes remained on the screen.  A blond haired presenter was talking earnestly about next week's feature on salmon farming.

"It's yours." Jimmy continued, pushing his luck, "And I'm going to keep it no matter what you say.  I mean, it'll probably be pretty cute, right?"

"Yeah, uh huh."

"Yeah, unless it gets my monobrow and your wonky eyes, I suppose."

"Yep."

"We just need to figure out how we're going to tell Joe.  I mean, I'm going to have to take a bit of time off bowling..."

"What?!"  Jimmy realised that during that last sentence, Alastair had put his iPad down and was starting at him intently. "Time off bowling?  What's wrong?" Alastair's face flooded with concern.  Jimmy shook his head and resisted rolling his eyes.

"I've been mortally wounded." Alastair looked confused.  "Right in the pride..." Jimmy rolled onto his back and melodramatically mimed being stabbed in the heart. "...by your extreme lack of attention."

Alastair smiled sheepishly and rolled towards him, wetting his lips with his tongue in a way that made Jimmy feel slightly dizzy.

"I'm sorry," he said, slipping a warm hand inside Jimmy's t-shirt, "It was a good episode.  Let me make it up to you."

Jimmy attempted a pout, but the thought of playing hard to get drifted effortlessly from his mind as Alastair's lips found his neck.


End file.
